1818- WHO IS BARRY?

Last night I was channel surfing the news shows- and I caught Lawrence O’Donnell doing another one of his ‘anti Mormon’ critiques.

Yes- MSNBC has an ongoing narrative where they speak about Romney as a ‘strange- weird- cult member’.

I saw this months ago- and they have been faithful to their task.

So anyway O’Donnell is covering the ancient teaching of Brigham Young [the co-founder of the Mormon religion- a follower of Joseph Smith] and he’s quoting all the racist teachings that he held to.

Specifically that mixed marriages are wrong.

Now- I could quote the actual Christian bible- yes- the Protestant/Catholic bible- and find this teaching in there.

Yes- the bible O’Donnell believes in!

But that would solve nothing.

Many old time preachers did teach this doctrine- from many various denominations.

Do we [I] believe that mixed marriage is wrong?

No.

But you do have some fundamentalist groups who still teach this.

So O’Donnell is fulfilling his task to portray Romney as a cult guy- and he spends a big portion of the show telling everyone that Romney’s religion is racist.

Now- you could find stuff like this out- with all the other candidates- even the President- yet this network is really not a news network- they are simply Obama devotees.

Axelrod- the presidents campaign guy- a few weeks back tweeted that Romney’s religion does not allow women to enter the temple when they are menstruating.

He left the tweet up for a little while then pulled it.

What?

I have heard other Mormons say this is a false charge- I really don’t know if the church ever taught it- but it’s possible.

Why?

Again- you do have certain health standards in the Old Testament- that if you read them- they speak about ‘uncleanness’ when a woman is menstruating.

We find verses on Dwarves not being able to serve God.

People [men] whose ‘stones’ are crushed not being able to serve God [testicals are stones].

So if you wanted- you could trace all these things- not just to Brigham Young or Joseph Smith- but you could also tie them in to the Christian faith.

Now- do most sane Christians believe these ‘strange’ teachings are still in effect?

Thank God- no.

But if your goal is to simply slander the opponent- then have at it.

One example.

Over the last few years- as a news watcher/reader- you pick up on certain clues along the way.

Maybe a story won’t make it into the mainstream [for various reasons- to cover up for a person- etc.] But as you read the other columnists- you see little pieces of the puzzle.

So- one of the charges that the ‘right’ has made against Obama is that he had a different name when he grew up- and went to school.

Some say he held the name ‘Barry Sotero’.

They claim his identity is in question because he might have been legally adopted by his stepdad- thus throwing the whole citizenship issue back into play.

Now- I have never read/heard a ‘mainstream news’ report on this- so I never brought it up [to me- it’s just as bad as raising the history of Romney’s church up- a belief he- and most Mormons do not hold to].

But as an avid reader of all stripes [both Liberal and Conservative writers].

I noticed something about a year ago- Maureen Dowd- a liberal columnist who writes for the N.Y. Times- she started referring to the president as Barry.

She gives no reason for it- she does not try and defend her use of it- she simply knows that he did indeed use this name- from what I can tell- all the way right up into his years in college.

Then why would you have never heard about this until now?

Because the media have a narrative- a story they want to tell [and also believe in].

They tell one that has the opponents of the president as a bunch of weird cult members- people who reject mixed marriages- people whose women can’t attend church when they are on their period- who have houses that have elevators for their cars [Romney].

These same media people were so entranced by a particular image of a man- an unrealistic messianic image- that they were so taken captive by- that one of them quit their job as a reporter- right on the spot- to simply join the most ‘transformative presidency’ in the history of man [Linda Douglas- who was reporting on the 2008 election].

You had another reporter [George Stephanopoulos] who admitted on national TV that he cried- very loudly [I guess like when you can’t get a word in type thing?] when he watched the inauguration of the president.

Chris Matthews famously said a thrill goes up his leg when he simply hears words proceeding from the presidents mouth.

Now- I don’t hate the man.

I don’t even like Romney.

But as you attempt to navigate between what’s best- what’s true- what’s fake.

For us to get treated to the 200 year old teaching of some strange leader of a religious sect- and yet for us to not even know that the current president never even came to the mainland of the U.S. until college- is striking.

Yes- the president lived in Indonesia- spent time in Kenya- visited the African continent- wrote about the anti Imperial mindset of the African colonies.

He was influenced by stories and people whose view of America was negative.

He lived among them- went to school with them.

Wore their Muslim garb [yes].

Prayed the Muslim prayer.

Used the name Barry.

And never stepped on the lower 48 until college.

Now- does this mean he’s a bad man?

No.

But for us to know that menstruating Mormons cant attend temple- and to not know any of this- well that’s what you call media bias.

That’s not journalism.

www.corpuschristioutreachministries.blogspot.com

Note- Do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on. Thanks- John